Ink
&
Sigil

“Tell me what ye know about the man’s death.”

The inspector blinked rapidly as the sigils did their work and then replied, “Neighbor in the flat downstairs called it in because the victim fell pretty heavily and pounded on the floor—or the neighbor’s ceiling—a few times before dying. A choking accident, as far as we can tell, unless the tox screen comes back and tells us there was something wrong with the scone.”

“Of course there was something wrong,” I said, looking at the half-eaten remainder sitting on a small saucer. “It had raisins in it.”

BY KEVIN HEARNE

The Iron Druid Chronicles

Hounded

Hexed

Hammered

Tricked

Trapped

Hunted

Shattered

Staked

Besieged

The Iron Druid Chronicles Novellas

Two Ravens and One
Crow Grimoire of the Lamb

The Seven Kennings

A Plague of Gians

A Blight of Blackwings

Ink & Sigil

Ink & Sigil

ORBIT

First published in Great Britain in 2020 by Orbit

Copyright © 2020 by Kevin Hearne

Title page: antique pen: iStock/InaSchönrock; flourish: iStock/Terriana

Frontispiece illustration: Galen Dara

Excerpt from The Last Smile in Sunder City by Luke Arnold

Copyright © 2019 by Luke Arnold

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978-0-356-51522-9

Orbit

An imprint of

Little, Brown Book Group

Carmelite House

50 Victoria Embankment
London EC4Y 0DZ

An Hachette UK Company

www.hachette.co.uk

www.orbitbooks.net

For Weegies

Contents

Author’s Note

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Interlude

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Interlude

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Interlude

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Interlude

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

AUTHOR’S NOTE

Some of the language used in this book reflects the charming and unique way Scots employ English, and some of it is specifically Glaswegian (or Weegie). Accents and pronunciation can vary greatly in regions of Scotland, and even though Glasgow and Edinburgh are less than fifty miles apart, their accents are quite distinct. The East End London accent is sometimes incomprehensible to Americans, so to give you an idea, folks from the East End of London sometimes find Glaswegians incomprehensible. I remember when Kimberly and I visited Glasgow and got a cab from the airport to our hotel. We felt absolutely terrible that we had to ask the driver to repeat himself several times, even though we were supposedly speaking the same language. We got the hang of it after a few days—you do get used to the vowel shifts and so on—but it can be disorienting at first.

The written version of it can be disorienting too, so I want to provide a quick guide here. I didn’t try to be exhaustively accurate in representing the spoken language but rather wanted to give a general idea of its flavor. The narration and texted conversations will largely conform to standard spelling rules, but the dialogue will contain the words listed below, and I’m providing some pronunciations so that you can more easily hear it in your head.

Ye is pronounced like yuh, or with a schwa sound, almost never yee. It’s used in place of you, with two exceptions: You is employed and pronounced as yoo for emphasis, but ya is used whenever calling someone a name, as in ya steaming gobshite or ya tiresome tit.

Daein’ is usually pronounced with two syllables that rhymes with payin’, but when folks are excited or in a hurry a syllable gets lost and it sounds like dane, and this is in lieu of doing.

Tae is pronounced like tee and is used instead of to in spoken language.

Gonnay is just like gonna in informal English, but it is pronounced with a long a sound at the end, and yes, Weegies really do pronounce it that way. I’m spelling it thusly to make the difference in pronunciation clear.

There seems to be a general aversion to saying the word not out loud, so there are several ways that Scots avoid that. All verb constructions like would not or did not become contractions and not is replaced at the end with nae, pronounced like knee. So she did-nae say anything, or she wouldnae do that, or she cannae afford a yacht. Sometimes on social media you will see these spelled as didny, wouldny, or canny, which saves a character, but I’m using the older spelling that’s in wider use. In other constructions where the contraction cannae be made, the t will be dropped off the end of not, and thus you will see phrases like she’ll no ever come back or I’m no paying for ma drink or I’m no gonnay get in the van with ye, ya spooky serial killin’ bastard. Which means that ye will no see the word won’t very often, but curiously you’ll see don’t. (There are always exceptions to rules, eh?) Perhaps to make up for the extra nos inserted into their language in place of nots, the Scots often say naw instead of no when answering a question. And sometimes nae is used in place of no, as in the phrase nae bother.

The th in the middle of something is eliminated entirely in the speech of many Weegies, and as a result the word is spelled and pronounced like sumhin.

The English contractions ain’t, isn’t, and sometimes aren’t are written and pronounced like in’t.

Sometimes in spoken language the word my is replaced with ma, more accurately reflecting its pronunciation.

The word what in Weegie pronunciation often sounds like whit, so in dialogue you will occasionally see it spelled as whit. Wot is obviously a different vowel sound and a more familiar variation of what to many readers, and that is also used in places by certain characters.

Head is pronounced like heed in spoken language and sometimes even in thoughts, but this is spelled as heid throughout to avoid confusion with the actual word heed. Likewise, dead is pronounced like deed but spelled as deid, so watch out: It’s the first word of the book.

Police is spelled the regular way in written language and on the back of official vests and so on, but Weegies pronounce it like polis, sort of rhyming with bolus, and often spell it that way in spoken language and in their more colorful graffiti messages that encourage all passersby to fuck the polis!

And in Scotland, a dog is often called a dug. Regardless of how it’s spelled, they are all good dugs.

The surname of our hero contains a Gaelic spelling, so the Bh is pronounced like a v, and the i before the final s means it’s pronounced with a sh sound at the end. So MacBharrais is pronounced as mac VARE ish, emphasis on the middle syllable.

Likewise, the Gaelic bean sídhe is going to be pronounced as ban shee (shortened and anglicized to banshee in some cases).

A couple of Scottish slang terms for you:

Rammy is a noun that means fracas or brouhaha.

Gallus is an adjective that means stylish and impressive.

You’ll also see the phrase and that in place of and such or and so on, as in “Angus had eggs, sausage and that for breakfast.”

And in case you missed it or were unaware, the protagonist of this series, Al MacBharrais, did appear in the Iron Druid Chronicles in Besieged, in a short story called “Cuddle Dungeon.” I don’t recommend sharing that particular story with the kids, though.

Enjoy!

—From a flat and frozen landscape in Canada that looks not unlike the rest of this page

February 29, 2020

CHAPTER 1

Scones Should Come with a Warning

Deid apprentices tend to tarnish a man’s reputation after a while. I’m beginning to wonder when mine will be beyond repair.

Fergus was crushed by a poorly tossed caber at the Highland Games.

Abigail’s parachute didn’t open when she went skydiving.

Beatrice was an amateur mycologist and swallowed poison mushrooms.

Ramsey was run over by American tourists driving on the wrong bloody side of the road.

Nigel went to Toronto on holiday and got his skull cracked by a hockey puck.

Alice was stabbed in a spot of bother with some football hooligans.

And now Gordie, who was supposed to be my lucky number seven, choked to death on a scone this morning. It had raisins in it, so that was bloody daft, as raisins are ill-omened abominations and he should have known better. Regardless of their ingredients, one should never eat a scone alone. Poor wee man.

None of their deaths was my fault, and they were completely unrelated to their training in my discipline, so that’s in my favor, at least. But still. People are starting to wonder if I’m capable of training a successor.

I’m starting to wonder too. And I’d like to have a successor soon, as I’m past sixty and rather wishing I could spend my time on sunny beaches, or in sunny gardens, or indeed anyplace where I might see the sun more often.

Scotland is not known for its sunshine. The Highlands get two hundred sixty days of rain per year. But it’s no fun for people in other countries to think of us as perpetually drenched, so I believe the popular imagination has painted us with kilts and bagpipes and unfortunate cuisine.

The muscle-bound constable standing outside Gordie’s flat in Maryhill and doing a fair job of blocking the entrance held up a hand as I moved to step around him and reach for the door. He was in no mood to give me a polite redirection. “The fuck ye daein’, bampot? Away an’ shite,” he said.

“Ram it up yer farter, Constable. Inspector knows I’m comin’, so get out ma way.”

Oh, yes, and colorful language. Scotland’s reputation for that is well deserved.

My cane is in fact a weapon that a person of my age is allowed to carry around openly, but I pretended to lean on it as I pulled out my “official ID” and flashed it at him. It was not a badge or anything truly official but rather a piece of goatskin parchment on which I had written three sigils with carefully prepared inks. Any one of them alone would probably work, but in combination they were practically guaranteed to hack the brain through the ocular nerve and get me my way. Most people are susceptible to manipulation through visual media—ask anyone in advertising. Sigils take advantage of this collective vulnerability far more potently.

The first one, Sigil of Porous Mind, was the most important, as it leached away the target’s certainties and priorities and made them open to suggestion. It also made it difficult for the target to remember anything that happened in the next few minutes. The next one, Sigil of Certain Authority, applied to me, granting my personage whatever importance the constable’s mind would plausibly accept. The third, Sigil of Quick Compliance, should goad him to agree to almost any reasonable order I gave next and make him feel good about it, giving him a hit of dopamine.

“Let me pass,” I said.

“Right ye are, sir,” he said, and smartly stepped to the side. There was plenty of room for me to enter now without contact and no need to say anything more. But he’d been a tad rude and I believed it deserved a proportional response, so I shouldered past him and muttered, “I pumpt yer gran.” He flashed a glare at me but said nothing, and then I was in the flat.

The inspector inside did not, in fact, know I was coming. She was middle-aged and looked a bit tired when she swung around at my entrance, but she was a good deal more polite than the constable. She had decided to let her hair go grey instead of dying it, and I liked her immediately for the decision.

“Hello. Who are you, then?”

There was a forensics tech of indeterminate gender taking digital pictures and ignoring both of us, an actual camera pressed to their face instead of a phone or a tablet extended toward the victim. I deployed the official ID once more and gestured at the body of poor Gordie, blue in the face and sprawled on his kitchen floor. Years of training, his hopes and mine, all spread out and lifeless. “Tell me what ye know about the man’s death.”

The inspector blinked rapidly as the sigils did their work and then replied, “Neighbor in the flat downstairs called it in because the victim fell pretty heavily and pounded on the floor—or the neighbor’s ceiling—a few times before dying. A choking accident, as far as we can tell, unless the tox screen comes back and tells us there was something wrong with the scone.”

“Of course there was something wrong,” I said, looking at the half-eaten remainder sitting on a small saucer. “It had raisins in it. Anything else of note?”

She pointed toward the hallway. “Two bedrooms, but he lived alone. One bedroom is full of fountain pens and inks. Never seen the like. Bit of a nutter.”

“Right. That’s why I’m here. I need to send that stuff in for testing n’ that.”

The inspector’s features clouded with confusion. “He didnae drink any of it.”

“No, no. This is part of a different investigation. We’ve been watching him for a while.”

“We? I’m sorry, I didnae catch your name.”

“Aloysius MacBharrais. Ye can call me Al.”

“Thanks. And you’re investigating his inks?”

“Aye. Toxic chemicals. Illegal compounds. That sort of rubbish.”

“On ye go, then. I didnae like that room. Felt strange in there.”

That idle comment was a huge warning. Gordie must have had some active and unsecured sigils inside. And all his inks— painstakingly, laboriously crafted with rare ingredients and latent magical power—had to be removed. The last thing the world needed was some constable accidentally doodling his way to a Sigil of Unchained Destruction. I’d secure them and preserve them for later analysis, keeping the successful decoctions and viable ingredients, and destroying the rest.

I turned without another word and went to the hallway. There were three doors, one presumably being the loo. Layout suggested that was the first door on my left, so I went to the second and cautiously cracked it open. It was his bedroom, and there was a desk as well with a small collection of pens, inks, and papers—all for normal correspondence. I snatched a sheet of stationery and selected an Aurora 88 pen from my coat pocket. It was presently filled with a rust-colored ink using cinnabar for the pigment and a varnish infused with ground pearls, fish glue, and the vitreous jelly of owl eyes. I drew a small circle first to direct the effect at myself, then carefully but quickly outlined the shapes of the Sigil of Warded Sight, which looked like a red eye, barred and banded over with simple knotwork. Once completed, the sigil activated and my sight changed to black and white, all color receptors dormant. It was the most basic defense against unsecured sigils: I could not be affected by them until this one wore off—or until I destroyed it myself. It had saved me too many injuries to count.

Putting the pen away and hefting my cane defensively, I kept the sigil in my left hand and crossed the hall to open the door to Gordie’s study. A waft of foul, funky air immediately punched me in the nose, and I wondered why the inspector hadn’t said anything about it before. It smelled like a sweaty scrotum. Or maybe ten of them.

“Gah,” I said, and coughed a couple of times to clear my lungs. I heard titters coming from the kitchen and realized the inspector had left out that fact on purpose. No wonder she’d told me to have at it. Her politeness had been a ruse to draw me to an olfactory ambush.

But I’d been wise to guard my vision. Gordie had far more than a few sigils lying around. The room was full of them, warding against this and that. The walls were lined with raw wooden workbenches and chairs, and cubbyholes full of labeled inks and ingredients glinted on the left. The main bench for ink preparation was opposite the door, and it was stained with pigments and oils and binders and held stoppered bottles of yet more inks. There was also a labeled rack of fountain pens and trays of paper and cards for sigils, along with sealing wax, a melting spoon, and a box of matches. Several cards pasted on the wall above the workbench had recognizable sigils on them for selective sight and attention that should make me—or anyone else who entered—completely ignore what was on the right side of the room. That’s why the detective inspector had felt so uncomfortable. She felt something was going on in there and most likely saw it, but the sigils wouldn’t let her mind process it. My warded sight made the sigils ineffective, so I had no difficulty seeing that there was a hobgoblin grunting and straining to work his way out of a cage placed on top of the workbench. That was a sight I never thought I’d see.

Different from pure goblins and more mischievous than outright malevolent, hobgoblins were extraordinarily difficult to capture as a rule, since they could teleport short distances and were agile creatures as well, with impressive vertical leaps aided by their thick thighs. This one was trying to reach one of several sigils placed around his cage on little metal stands, like draught-beer lists placed on pub tables. His long, hairy-knuckled fingers waggled as he stretched for the sigil nearest him. If he could reach one of them and tear it up, he might have a way out, since the sigils were more of a prison for him than the actual cage was. He froze when he saw me staring at him, openmouthed.

“Wot?” he said.

I closed the door behind me. “What are ye daein’ here?”

“I’m in a cage, in’t I? Ye must be the cream of Scottish intelligence. Cannae be anywhere else if I’m no free, ya fuckin’ genius. But at least ye can see an’ hear me. The bird who was here before couldnae.”

“I mean why does he have ye caged?” The fellow didn’t appear to be an unusual hobgoblin worthy of capture or study; he was short and hairy, square-jawed, his face adorned with a fleshy nose and eyebrows like untrimmed hedgerows.

“He’s a right evil bastard, that’s why. Or was. He’s deid, in’t he? How’d he die?”

“Raisin scone.”

“So it was suicide, then.”

“Naw, it was an accident.”

“He didn’t accidentally eat a raisin scone, now, did he? So it was suicide.”

I shrugged, conceding the point. “Who are you?”

“I’m the happy hob ye’re gonnay set free now. Unless ye’re like him.”

“I’m no like him. I’m alive, to begin with. Answer ma questions truthfully and no more dodges. Who are ye and why did Gordie imprison ye here?”

“Said he was gonnay sell me. He’s a trafficker in Fae folk, so he is. Or was.”

“Nonsense.” I stamped my cane on the floor. “Tell me the truth!”

The hobgoblin stood as straight as he could in his cage—he was only about two feet tall—and placed his right hand over his heart, deploying the phrase that the Fae always used when they were swearing the truth or asserting reality. “I tell ye three times, man. He’s got a buyer. I’m s’posed tae be delivered tonight. And I’m no the first he’s sold. There was a pixie in here a couple of days ago, didnae stay long.” He pointed to a slightly smaller, empty cage sitting next to his.

This information was more of a shock to me than Gordie’s death. I’d had apprentices die on me before, but none of them had used their knowledge of sigils to traffic in the Fae. Carrying away the inks and pens of my old apprentices had always been a sad affair, because they’d been pure souls who wanted to do good in the world. This situation suggested that Gordie hadn’t been such a soul. Trafficking Fae? I didn’t know such traffic existed.

“But . . . we’re s’posed tae boot the likes o’ ye back to the Fae planes whenever ye show up here.”

“We, did ye say? Oh, so ye are like him. Just with a twee dandy mustache, all waxy and twisted.”

I squinted at him, considering how to respond. Hobgoblins tend not to take well to naked aggression, but they have that pubescent sense of humor young boys have, which I can deploy rapidly when occasion demands. “It’s no twee,” I said. “It’s luxuriant and full-bodied, like yer maw.”

The hobgoblin cackled at that, and I noted that his teeth were abnormally bright and straight. It wasn’t a glamour, because my sight was still warded. He’d had some work done. Since when did hobgoblins pay for cosmetic dental work? And his clothing was notable too. I couldn’t identify colors in black-and-white vision, but he wore a paisley waistcoat with a watch chain leading to the pocket, but no shirt underneath it. There was a triskele tattooed on his right shoulder, the sort I’ve seen associated with Druids. Black jeans and chunky black boots. Maybe he was an unusual hobgoblin after all. His eyes glittered with amusement.

“Come on, then, ol’ man. Let us out.”

“I will. But ye still have no told me yer name.”

“For wot? Are ye gonnay send me flowers for the Yule?”

“I need to bind ye to leave this place safely.”

“But then ye can bind me for anythin’ else ye want in the future. I’m no letting ye have that power. Ma current situation has made me a wee bit distrustful.”

“Well, I don’t want tae set a hobgoblin loose in a room fulla binding inks. Do ye know who’s s’posed to be buyin’ ye? Or for why?”

The hobgoblin shook his head. “I don’t. But yer lad Gordie had some papers over there he liked to shuffle around an’ murmur over. The bird had a look an’ said they were nonsense, but maybe they’re no to an ol’ man. Ye look like ye went tae school back when yer hair wasn’t white as lilies.”

I moved to the workbench and scanned the papers I saw there. Gordie had been preparing sigils for later use, but there was no helpful explanation of his business dealings. The hobgoblin might be making this all up, and I hoped he was, because otherwise Gordie had been an evil bastard and I’d been a consummate fool. But the fact was, Gordie had done some impressive sigil work in this room. Work that should have been impossible for him. There were sigils I hadn’t taught him yet—like the Sigil of Iron Gall—which meant he’d also crafted inks for which I hadn’t taught him the recipes. He’d obviously been keeping some secrets, which didn’t bother me, because apprentices are supposed to do that. What bothered me was that someone was teaching him behind my back.

“I think I know who ye are,” the hobgoblin said. “There’s s’posed tae be a Scottish sigil agent with a waxed mustache. Are ye called MacVarnish or sumhin like that?”

“MacBharrais.”

“Ah, that’s it. Heard ye were sharp. But if ye had that wanker Gordie tossin’ around behind ye, maybe ye’re no, eh, pal?”

Maybe not. On a scrap pad where Gordie had scrawled lines in different inks to make sure the flow was good before drawing sigils, he had written: Renfrew Ferry, 8 pm.

“Ye said ye were s’posed tae be delivered tonight? Was it at eight?”

I got no response except a grunt and the sound of torn paper. I turned to see a triumphant hobgoblin freeing himself from the cage, one of the sigils that dampened his magic having been destroyed. He couldn’t have reached it physically—I saw him fail as I entered—so he must have managed to exert some magical pull on it to bring it to his fingers. That was precisely the sort of thing that should have been impossible with multiple copies of it around him. The only explanation was that their potency must have waned significantly, the magic all leached from the ink, and with Gordie dead and obviously not paying attention, it was little wonder.

Cackling and flashing those white teeth at me, the hobgoblin leapt off the table and made for the door. I was out of position and woefully slow; there was no time to even break the seal on a prepared Sigil of Agile Grace.

“Laters, MacVarnish!” he said, and bolted out the door. A thud and screams followed shortly thereafter, and there was a shouted “I’m glad yer deid!” before a shocked silence settled in the kitchen. I emerged from the room, far too late, to see the inspector and the tech on the ground, holding their noses. The hobgoblin had leapt up and punched them for the fun of it, and Gordie’s body now lay twisted in a much different position, having recently been kicked. I could still see his face, though, a look of frozen surprise that this was his end, that his brown hair was mussed and he had a few days’ stubble on his neck and jaw, blue eyes widened in horror that he would be literally be caught dead wearing his Ewok pajamas.

“What in the name of fuck?” the inspector cried. “What was that just now, a pink leprechaun?” She’d had no difficulty seeing the blighter once he’d exited Gordie’s room. I’d not seen the hobgoblin’s skin color with my vision limited, so I filed that information away for future reference. Her eyes lit upon me and anger flared in them as she rose from the floor. The constable from outside burst into the room, also holding his nose. I needed them out of there right away, because Gordie’s entire flat had to be scoured for clues. The official ID came out before they could lay into me and I gave them what for.

“Clear this flat now! Leave immediately and return tomorrow. That’s an order. Go! Work on sumhin else!”

They scarpered off under the sway of the sigils and would probably return sooner rather than later when they remembered someone had punched them and they wanted answers. I needed to get answers of my own before then; Gordie had caught me napping, but I was fully awake now.